


Don't Fear the Reaper

by strixus



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Romance, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:04:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strixus/pseuds/strixus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duo falls in love with the perfect woman. Except, perfect things never last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Fear the Reaper

**Author's Note:**

> (Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult

Duo Maxwell sat with his feet propped up on one of the empty chairs in the student lounge, reclining back in the one he had claimed as his, his laptop propped on his lap, music software running, pumping a stream of Wagner into his headphones. Spread open over the keyboard was a battered and abused hardbound edition of Descartes' Meditations which Duo was plowing through for the fourth time in as many weeks. His frustration with the text was growing, mostly due to how horrible his Latin was, and the due date looming only a week away for the critique paper he was working on made his temperament no better.

Duo was so deeply absorbed in the book and the music that he didn't hear the girl walk up behind him. She tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped with a start, ripping the headphones out of his ears painfully. The girl jumped back at his sudden reaction, just as startled as Duo. Duo looked up at the girl who had startled him so; his gaze met a pair of slightly slanted pale green eyes set in a smooth face framed with nearly jet black hair.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," She stuttered. "I didn't mean to startle you… but umm…" She hesitated, and wrung her hands nervously. "Are you really Duo Maxwell?"

Duo groaned inwardly. Nearly ever girl he had met at this school seemed to be some adoring fan, fawning over him, but far more interested in Duo Maxwell the Gundam pilot than Duo Maxwell the Philosophy major.

"Yes, I am." Duo bit back adding unfortunately to the end of the sentence, and sighed mentally.

"Oh, wow." She blushed slightly. "I didn't know until I pointed you out to my friend Laura. We were um…" She grinned sheepishly. "I was umm… I just commenting that I thought you were cute… and she told me who you were, trying to talk me out of coming over and asking you if you wanted to come get a cup of coffee or something."

Duo suddenly felt himself overcome by an impulse. "I'd be happy to. You're the first girl on this campus who hasn't recognized me on sight." He sprang to his feet, nearly dropping his laptop, grinning like an idiot.

All our times have come  
Here but now they're gone  
Seasons don't fear the reaper  
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain..  
(we can be like they are)  
Come on baby... (don't fear the reaper)  
Baby take my hand.. (don't fear the reaper)  
We'll be able to fly... (don't fear the reaper)  
Baby I'm your man...

Her name was Li Wei, a Chinese name that was a legacy of her mother, but she went by Lee in school, preferring the simpler, if more masculine name. She was a physics major, working on a minor in mechanical engineering along the way, and had been in school nearly as long as Duo, and for the same reasons: she was having fun being a student on someone else's money.

After their first meeting, they had both known there was something more than a simple friendship forming. Tentatively, they had gone through the motions of dating, going out to dinner, spending time together on campus in their free time between classes, and all of the normal things of two young people hesitant to be too involved with the other.

And yet, Duo felt himself slowly but surely falling for her, in some abstract way he couldn't understand. She was full of life, always on the move, always doing something new and different with her free time; rock climbing or cycling, in to one martial arts or another, and always seemingly in perfect health. She loved computers, a thing she shared with Duo, and her background in physics made her an excellent debate partner for some of the more abstract concepts Duo ran across in his studies.

Nearly two months after they had met, out of the blue Lee invited him to come with her hang gliding up in the mountains along the coast north of town. She said some friends were going, and she had arranged to get some flight time for them. Duo had been ecstatic at the idea, though more for the chance to spend more time with her than the idea of hang gliding, and had agreed happily.

She had picked him up at his small apartment in a black European convertible sports car Friday afternoon, the top down, her shoulder length black hair shining in the sunlight and her laughter echoing in his head.

"What a beautiful car…" Duo said, running a hand over the front fender admiringly.

"Glad you like her." Lee smiled. "Her name is Selket."

"You are the last person I expected to have a car named after an Egyptian goddess of death." Duo laughed.

So they had driven into the mountains together, the top down to the chill spring air. Somewhere along the way, they ditched the whole hang gliding plan, and decided to drive the coastal highway, enjoying the air and the sea smell, and the joy of driving along the tight, winding roads. In a small mountain town they stopped at a liquor store, and bought a bottle of red wine on impulse, and drove until they found a dirt road turnoff. They drove down it, following the winding road, until it opened out onto a cliff top ocean overlook. There they stopped, and watched the moon rise while sitting on the hood of the car, passing the bottle between them until the stars were shining in a mass of brilliant diamond dust overhead and the dregs of the wine were gone.

Drunkenly, Lee laughed loudly into the night, and had fun pointing out stellar oddities to Duo, who in return pointed out to her the colony he had been born in, and all of the famous battle points of the war. Duo was not quite as drunk as Lee was, but he was close, and realized both of them were far too drunk to drive to find a hotel or anywhere else to sleep. Stealthily, he snuck his hand around her back, and reached in her pocket without her even noticing, and pulled out the car keys, then slipped them into his own pocket. She wouldn't have noticed had the keys not jingled when he pocketed them.

"Hey!" She protested loudly. "Those are mine! Give those back."

"Nope. I'm keeping these safe. We aren't going anywhere till morning at least." Duo grinned at her.

"I know that, silly. I don't mind spending the night out here. But," She glared at him with mischievous green eyes, "I still want those back." She lunged across the car hood at him, and they both fell off the front of the car, rolling in the dew wet grass as Lee tried to tickle him into submission. Laughing, Duo returned the attack, putting Lee on the defensive, and together they rolled and tumbled until both were wordlessly breathless from laughter. But Lee had come out on top, and sat pinning Duo to the grass. She grinned at him, and Duo saw she had sobered remarkably quickly.

"Duo I…" She started, and then kissed him firmly on the lips. "Duo, I love you." She said when she pulled away.

Duo felt his heart swell with joy. "I love you too, Lee."

Valentine is done  
Here but now they're gone  
Romeo and Juliet  
Are together in eternity...Romeo and Juliet  
40,000 men and women everyday...  
(Like Romeo and Juliet)  
40,000 men and women everyday...  
(Redefine happiness)  
Another 40,000 coming everyday...  
(We can be like they are)  
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper  
Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper  
We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper  
Baby I'm your man...

Eight months after their mountain adventure, Duo and Lee had moved in together. They had settled into their domestic lives wonderfully, balancing school and home life seamlessly. Their lifestyles meshed nearly perfectly, and the time they spent together was the joy of Duo's days. And as he watched her work through a page of particularly difficult EM equations, her green eyes focused in that serious way she only got when she was tackling serious computations, Duo thought how much he wanted to make her a permanent part of his life.

That's it, he thought to himself, I'll ask her to marry me. Who would have ever thought, Duo smirked inwardly, that I'd ever end up settling down. But she's perfect…

Suddenly Duo realized there was something wrong. Lee had collapsed on the table, face down in her EM book, and wasn't moving. Duo's gut turned over in panic, and he rushed over to her, trying to wake her. His heart skipped a beat, perhaps several, when he realized she wasn't breathing.

In a panic he called the paramedics, and rode with them to the hospital in the ambulance. They had her breathing, and stabilized, but not conscious by the time they reached the hospital, so Duo felt more secure leaving her side to fill out the admittance paperwork as best he could. As he finished filling it out, a doctor walked up to him and asked if he was the one who had come in with Lee. Duo nodded.

"I'm afraid I have some very bad news, Mr. Maxwell." The doctor said, pulling him away from the nurses' desk. "She has a congenital heart defect, a weakness in the tissue of one of the ventricles, and well… I'm afraid it finally gave out and has ruptured. It's a very small hole, but its causing her heart to beat in a very irregular way, and her chest cavity is slowly filling with blood."

"Doc, please stop beating around the bush. What aren't you telling me?" Duo glared at the doctor.

"Under normal circumstances, we could operate and fix the hole. But according to her medical records, she has several conditions that would render any attempt at surgery fatal." The doctor looked pained. "She's dying, Mr. Maxwell. She has about a day left, max." Duo felt his heart seize with grief. "She is awake now, I would recommend you go and see her. She has been asking for you since we told her." Duo ran towards Lee's room at breakneck speed, ignoring the doctor's calls after him.

He found her room quickly enough in the intensive care unit, her body looking small and fragile in the bed that was a nest of wires and tubes. Weakly, she opened her eyes as he came in, and smiled. Even that looked like it caused her pain. He sat down in the chair beside her bed, and took her hand gently, careful of the IV.

"Oh, Duo." She said breathlessly. "I'm so sorry."

"Lee… " Duo didn't know what to say. And then it came to him. "Lee, will you marry me?"

Her eyes opened wide in shock, but she smiled. "Yes, Duo, oh yes."

"Then let's say our vows, while we still have time." He gripped her hand tightly. "I wish I had a ring to give you, but I don't, I'm sorry."

"Its ok, Duo." Lee said softly.

Quietly, surrounded by the beeps and pings of the monitoring machinery, they recited their vows to each other. But both, whether purposefully or not, left off "Till death do us part."

A few hours later, Lee looked over at Duo, her face paler than it had been minutes before by noticeable shades. "Duo, don't be afraid for me, ok?" She said in a whisper. "I'm not afraid of death, not any more."

"Why's that, Lee?" Duo held her hand even tighter.

"I fell in love with him." She smiled, the skin of her face tight and drawn with pain. "I love you, Duo."

"I love you too, Lee." He said.

She closed her eyes slowly, and her body relaxed into unconsciousness. Twelve hours later, she died without ever having regained consciousness. As the last screaming beep of her heart monitor faded, Duo laid his head down beside her body on the bed, and did something he had not done since the war: he cried.

Love of two is one  
Here but now they're gone  
Came the last night of sadness  
And it was clear she couldn't go on  
Then the door was open and the wind appeared  
The candles blew then disappeared  
The curtains flew then he appeared...saying don't be afraid  
Come on baby...  
(and she had no fear)  
And she ran to him...  
(then they started to fly)  
They looked backward and said goodbye...  
(she had become like they are)  
She had taken his hand...  
(she had become like they are)  
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper

Two weeks after Lee's death, Duo drove back out to the cliff top overlook where they had found themselves after that long drive through the mountains that Friday that felt so long ago. He had driven up in Lee's car, given to him, along with most of her estate, by her parents, and now sat on its hood with a bottle of the same red wine, and a small black velvet box beside him. Duo wanted to think the tears on his face were caused by the wind's harsh blow, but the truth was, he had barely stopped crying since the day Lee had died. Duo stood, getting off the hood of the car, and faced into the ocean wind.

"Lee, I brought a gift for you." He said softly as he picked up the bottle of red wine. He walked to the edge of the cliff, heaved back, and pitched the bottle end over end over the edge of the cliff. He watched it sail out over the ocean in a beautiful symphony of parabolic motion, and tumble downwards, vanishing into the gray froth of sea foam far below.

"I remember how much you liked that wine." He said, his voice barely a whisper. "But that wasn't the gift I meant." He walked back over to the car hood, and picked up the black velvet box, barely bigger than the palm of his hand. Carefully, he opened it and pulled out the ring inside.

It was platinum, a delicate band of the nearly glowing silver metal, cleverly crafted to be like a mobius strip turned into a ring. If you traced your fingers around the surface, there seemed to be only one true surface. Set into the top surface of it were two small, pale green emeralds, and a bright white diamond. Duo had ordered it especially made, and had called in Quatre's help to find a jeweler skilled enough to make it as he wanted it. Quatre had been horrified, and yet deeply touched, when Duo had told him what he was going to do with it.

Duo walked back to the edge of the cliff, the ring clutched so tightly in his hand it cut into his flesh. "Remember the ring I promised you? I finally got it. I'm sorry it took me so long." Duo brought his clenched fist up against his heart, and said a silent prayer to himself. "I hope you like it, Lee. I had it made just for you."

And with that, he tossed the ring, as he had the bottle of wine, out into the ocean far below. It sparkled with a wink of diamond and platinum, and then was gone into the sea. Duo looked out after it, and wiped the tears from his eyes.

"I love you, Lee." Duo whispered into the wind.


End file.
